Cheryl E. Leonard // near the bear CD

アメリカの実験音楽家Cheryl E. Leonardが、2026年1月にドイツ・ベルリンのフィールドレコーディングレーベルforms of minutiaeからリリースしたCDです。

物音コラージュ〜ドローン12曲を収録。6面デジパック仕様です。

レーベルその他作品はこちら /// Click here to see more Forms of Minutiae releases available at Tobira. 

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Ask us for digital files.
CD in 6-panel sleeve.
Includes booklet.
Part of a series by Forms of Minutiae's dedicated to the UN's 'International Year of Glacier's Preservation' in 2025: "a series of albums dedicated to glaciers and the acoustic multiplicity of the ice".

Tracklist:

1. moffen 04:28
2. glugge 08:34
3. thresholds 09:36
4. mørketid 14:59
5. sila 11:00

Text excerpt from the label:

"Across these five carefully-crafted compositions, Leonard weaves together sounds performed on natural and human-made objects found in polar regions, with field recordings and site-specific improvisations. Voices coaxed from stones, shells, driftwood, bones, sand, and kelp are entangled with wild soundscapes such as lapping waves, sea ice snaps, howling winds, and squeals from a frozen pond. This sonic synthesis hints at the myriad ways Arctic lifeforms and natural systems interconnect. The composer also brings her music into conversation with the rocky history of human enterprises in the Arctic by including sounds from saw blades, pyrex beakers, remnants of forsaken mining operations, and the ship she sailed on in Svalbard.

In the opening track, “moffen”, Leonard calls forth the playful spirit of juvenile walruses with the help of master saxophonist Phillip Greenlief, who performs on kelpinet, a tubular piece of dried bullwhip kelp with a saxophone mouthpiece attached to one end. This frolicking composition invites audiences to marvel at the wide range of sounds walruses produce, and to share the artist’s concern about the future of this extraordinary species. “glugge", a response to increasing industrialization in the Arctic Ocean, developed from recordings Leonard made via the porthole in her schooner cabin. Lilting ostinatos generated by the ship’s propeller build into a gasping elegy for the Arctic icecap and the ecosystems it supports. Ensconced in pulsing tones from bowed glass, “thresholds” peers through the window of a home in Upernavik, Greenland into a tempestuous Arctic storm, contemplating tensions between domestic and wild, human and more-than-human. In the slowly-evolving “mørketid”, which grew out of an improvisation on metal handrails in the ghost town of Pyramiden, Leonard wonders what it would be like to spend polar night in a Soviet coal mining settlement. The album draws to a close in Illulissat, Greenland, at a crystalizing edge of Baffin Bay, with the breath-based composition “sila”, which features bird bones brushed with feathers and bowed limpet shells. 

Together, these evocative works draw listeners north, sharing sounds, wonders, and stories from the most rapidly-warming region on Earth. Though it may seem seem far away, Leonard’s “near the bear” reminds us that we are all marvelously and irrevocably entwined with the fragile, wild Arctic."

Artist : cheryl e. leonard

Label : Forms of Minutiae

cat no : fom18

Release date : 26th September 2025